Obituary - Xecutioner's Return Review artwork

Rating: 8.8

Country: USA

Release Date: 2007

Track list:
1. Face Your God
2. Lasting Presence
3. Evil Ways
4. Drop Dead
5. Bloodshot
6. Seal Your Fate
7. Feel The Pain
8. Contrast The Dead
9. Second Chance
10. Lies
11. In Your Head

Band Website: Obituary

Obituary - Xecutioner's Return

John Tardy- Vox
Trevor Peres- Guitars
Ralph Santolla- Guitars
Frank Watkins- Bass
Donald Tardy- Drums

In a world where today's verities become tomorrow's chimeras, vacuous propositions like “truth” and “absolute knowledge” cannot bestir our hearts as they did Hegel's. Inundated with flux, we grope in vain for certainty to deliver us from postmodern, consumerist nothingness. It is a boon, then, that Obituary have granted us throughout their career, an affirmation that continuity is not altogether lost in their universe. Indeed, one could reverse Copernican and Newtonian doctrines without altering certain constants in the Obituary equation- acrid riffs gleaned from the Tom G. Warrior playbook, pulse-stopping tempo shifts and propulsive rhythms accoutred with hernia-inducing, bile-coated grunts.

One could raise an objection to this maxim and point out that the Floridians have authored some rather grotesque Greenpeace groove-crud. I'll be the last to contest such grievances, for few have suffered from those abysmal releases as I. To the maudlin types still lamenting the loss of Florida's foremost sludge-slingers, I urge you to press your ears against Frozen In Time and Xecutioner's Return , proofs that such abherrations should be erased from memory altogether. This is not an apologia for Obituary's excursions into nu-metal, nor am I proposing that we look indulgently upon their sanguine hopes of rap-death hybridization, but a sincere hope that folks haven't forsaken the heaviest death metal band on the planet. If anything, their passage into redemption was inaugurated with the opening chords of Frozen In Time, and Xecutioner's Return is continuation of these baptismal rites.

An oft-flogged dead horse amongst the death metal contingent- Slowly We Rot or Cause Of Death? An oft-lodged gripe against Cause Of Death - “James Murphy's wankery is a poor fit for the record!”. This lowly scribe does not cast his two pennies into either camp, and certainly does not count himself among the vociferous hordes decrying Mr Murphy's fine work. Yet, I cannot help but suspect that these petulant grouches will have somewhat less to complain about here. The slight awkwardness of COD stems entirely from the gulf between the band's primal, rudimentary compositions and the unabashedly virtuoso leads, an irreconcilable schism that one might liken to corned beef topped with truffle shavings. Ralph Santolla's presence on this record will likely repulse heads who look unfavourably upon his work on the last Deicide outing, though I very much feel that the arrangements on this recording have been engineered to provide a seamless fit with his style.

This is not to say that Xecutioner's Return is in any sense a more ‘refined' record- after all, this is the band that built a black edifice upon two decades of Hellhammer chords and Neanderthal crudeness. The uncouth caveman animus is still here in abundance, but it's tempered with a fluid, effortless dynamism that is quite unlike anything else they've ever recorded. If anything, this recording is the assured product of sound experience, the band navigating through a tempest of torrential first-wave chords with unflappable finesse and élan. Who else can make the simplest, starkest chord progressions sound THIS exciting? Opener “Face Your God” is testament to a leaner, smarter Obituary, alloying a surging, seething verse riff with an equally simplistic bridge passage and succinctly-expressed solo, all fuelled by one insistent rhythm and augmented with John's maniacal, testicles-in-a-vice delivery. “Lasting Presence” is Master -on-fast-forward, ornamented with a juxtaposition of atonal Kerry King caterwauling/whammy dives and Santolla's tuneful eloquence, while “Bloodshot” and “Feel Your Pain” are exercises in gradual asphyxiation, smothering slowburn of the Slowly We Rot variety.

May that canard regarding Obituary's demise be banished! When you self-appointed morticians were prepared to embalm the festering corpse, Frozen In Time disinterred everything that we had presumptuously condemned to obscurity. Obituary's obduracy is commensurate with their vitality, and Xecutioner's Return is, hopefully, far from the last groan from these venerable ghouls. Absolutely bloody necessary.

November 2nd, 2007